Hasta septiembre

 In one massive sentence, starting from my lovely room overlooking the Parc de la Ciutadella I went for a run in the parc where I bade hasta pronto to . . .

. . .the statues, the lake, the Barcelonian Arc de Triomf and the stylish women sipping their café con leches at outdoor cafes eyeing me as I ran by, thinking that I reminded them of their grandfathers and hoping that if I had a heart attack and collapsed it would be in front of someone else’s table.

Then I spent a chunk of the morning getting an officially-certified negative COVID test, which I need to get back into the States. I’m no epidemiologist, but given that the US has a lower vaccination rate than Uruguay and Thailand, is giving away vaccines because people don’t want them, has had more COVID cases than any other country in the world (double the number of the second-place country), and has people actively demonstrating against measures to reduce the spread, it seems a little out of touch to make sure people aren’t testing positive when they enter our country by air. In contrast, when I came into Spain, Spain said “if you’re vaccinated, you’re good. Come on in.” Spain even tolerated the embarrassing fact that my proof of vaccination was a piece of paper that someone wrote on with a ball-point pen.

A few other final thoughts and observations:

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

If you’re asked to do an English translation of something, don’t phone it in. We have Google Translate now.

Where necessary, get an English speaker to help you.

Failed branding exercises have real-world consequences.

When you don’t watch, read or listen to the news for 10 straight days, the only effect that has on anything in the world is that you will be in a better mood.

Hasta septiembre.